today violence is once again flared up. these are the images girls world have been seeing from the streets of canada. showing up for a shelter all day. well i'm john hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. as soon as the president finished laid out his proposals to reduce gun violence yesterday republicans attacked some even calling for his impeachment why are republicans going after president obama's use of executive orders when they let the bush administration use that power with no questions asked also if you want an example of the dangers of fracking look no further than fort worth texas for drinking wells have been

contaminated with dangerous chemicals but why hasn't the e.p.a. our nation's environmental watchdog shut down the company responsible for that contamination and later in the show we'll have a your take my take the live segment your chance to call in and ask a question or make a comment live on the air. you know this after president obama unveiled his plans for gun control including side he more than twenty executive orders republicans are reacting with calls for impeachment despite president's routinely signing executive orders republicans are accusing the president of i cry and mr meters in public and congressman steve stockman compared the president to saddam hussein and threaten to beat your publicans louie gohmert trailer delp. saying impeachment is one of a number of options that should be on the table to respond to the president's

frankly rather modest gun reforms course of the rational person the president's executive orders are common sense including better record sharing between federal agencies new studies on gun violence and even providing incentives for schools to hire resource off. searchers but to the hard right these are executive orders and that are tyranny which is particularly hypocritical because these same republicans didn't seem to mind when president bush signed a number of far more radical executive orders during his term including a ban on stem cell research the authorization of torture creating more powers for the vice president's office and making it harder to get a hold of presidential records all of those actions were taken by bush without any consideration of cars but none of them were taken against the deep pocketed gun into history so republicans are just fine. enough of the rhetoric it's time for congress to do what the american people overwhelmingly support which is to take

action to get weapons of war off our streets and out of the hands of the mentally ill and that also includes addressing the wealth inequality issue in america that is one of the underlying factors that drives violence in our society pass an assault weapon ban and repeal the reagan tax cuts two for more let's bring in mike papantonio attorney and host of ring of fire radio five welcome back. great great to see it president bush signed a number of far more radical executive orders during his term including as i mentioned earlier a ban on stem cell research the authorization of torture created more powers for the v.p. office making it harder to get access to presidential records none of these were taken with any consideration of congress why wasn't congress up in arms about that . wasn't as much money involved for the republicans then the jim sensenbrenner story tells you a lot really sheds a light when how completely the republicans are owned in order to round by the gun

manufacturing industry this hustler of republican politician if you follow this story engineer to plan where he snuck into the patriot act where the president couldn't appoint an a.t.f. chief now the reason this story is important is it shows you how wholly own republicans are by the gun industry without the presence on able to appoint an a.t.f. chief without a vote from congress now that's never happened in the past in the reason for that is not being discussed enough tom the reason is the gun industry has always been terrified of having an active a.t.f. chief who might actually investigate things like the export of munitions to all around the world are routinely sold to places like pakistan and venezuela and india and algeria buy american you. manufacturers see we're focusing on the little money we're focusing on the tragedy which is the horrible tragedy of what the gun

industry has done to america but it's a money story again the arms industry that sells this all over these weapons of destruction and death all over the country they make a lot of money doing that so we're focusing on the nine millimeters and they are fifteen's but it's the rocket launchers it's the bazookas it's the surface to air missiles it's the armor piercing and the armor piercing ammunition that's the real story here and if you have an active a.t.f. chief that would look at this story they see that the u.s. is right now manufacturing fire manufacturing industry exports four point four billion dollars to countries like algeria that's in the news today algeria then sends it to other countries that typically are under some type of embargo over arms by the united states the industry knows they've been doing this for decades sometimes you'll have an active a.t.f.

investigator but the reason that story missed the press the reason the story is not being talked about is they don't understand it's a money story it's not that they don't want to have an a.t.f. chief it's just there's so much money involved in the four point four billion dollars of death that they spread all over developing countries that's extraordinary and hasn't there also been a not just the senate refusing to confirm. even though it's not a cabinet position the constitution doesn't require senatorial advice and consent but they've also been down funding or level funding or cutting funding to functions as i have they have not the republicans in congress been doing that as well they've been doing it for the last twelve years and the problem is if you if you go online and take a look at how the a.t.f. is regarded they simply want the a.t.f. to go away. because if so if you had an active chief and the chief understood that

it's not about them importing black market guns to the united states that's not where the big money is the big money is the armaments industry the u.s. gun industry knows when they sell these products to developing countries they end up where they shouldn't be there's never been a serious investigation about it and you know what the gun industry wants to keep it like that so that's this story is more than just a minor story about the a.t.f. chief it's an important story i think so too are all of the president's executive orders basically common sense things that the majority of americans you know if they went through the list if they knew what they were would be totally on board with. they absolutely would the the n.r.a. has been very smart about framing the argument that they that we don't want the government to take our the guns we have in our home now if you ask ten people line them up and say what's this whole issue about nine of them if they come from the crazy right will tell you that the issues about they're going to come to my house

they're going to take my nine millimeter glock they're going to take my forty caliber this has nothing to do with that but the n.r.a. has been very successful in keeping that alive the n.r.a. is nothing more i equate it to the to the pimp and the working girl analysis the n.r.a. is the pillow me the armaments in history is the is the pip in the n.r.a. is out there doing their work so they've been able to sell this thing they've been able to scare the american public by reducing the argument to a ridiculous argument nobody's going to show up at anybody's home and take their guns but if you ask the right wing that's their talking point senator rand paul says he wants to nala fi this action is that language that was used prior to the civil war do you have any idea what he's talking about or is he just shouting out to the to the crazy base. it down you hear the term know if i what you're talking about is the conflict in the fourteenth amendment i mean that's that's what

a guy like that says when he means that the federal government should not have the right to have any police power health safety or welfare where it comes to states' rights that is that language that comes from the lunatic right and he is one of the lunatic right so you're going to hear no if i owe a lot is this goes forward because it's all coming down to the states right argument that's been around for so long are republicans really that opposed to new studies on gun violence or sharing records between federal agencies i don't get why they would be opposed to this or is this just you know because president obama signed these executive orders they're going to make all this sturm and drang about that and let people just imagine the very worst possible things they can and just make it all about politics the idea is to the idea is to take the real issue and to to to disguise the real issues with issues like that if you recall again this is an industry that has total immunity the gun industry has total mean to do anything

they want so any time anybody moves in in any direction to try to have them come up with a sane solution you'll see this knee jerk reaction if you recall you had you had congress actually that passed a law is it was or is is may be sure law enforcement had no right to trace the weapon that's used in a violent crime they wanted a registry where they could say this gun was used in a violent crime let's trace where it came from congress said no because the gun industry puts so much pressure on them not to allow it so the people who suffer are the policeman who have to make a stop who have to make the rest somebody with a warrant and all of a sudden they have no idea that the gun ended up in that household surveys if i could change the subject slightly here on monday seven pennsylvania republican state representatives introduced a bill to basically rig the twenty. sixteen presidential election under their bill the winner of pennsylvania as a whole along to get two of the states twenty electoral votes instead of all twenty

of them while the rest of the other eighteen votes are going to be assigned by congressional districts your thoughts on this you know this is another words the whole idea of the democracy in america is not is not wielded by the vote it's wilted by the vote counting so this is a way where their votes can be counted or they can be thrown out according to what that district that district in is they've already gerrymandered to the point where is virtually impossible for the democrats never take a congressional seat back in pennsylvania so that this is the next thing that they want to do go to favorable white affluent elderly districts and just count those votes and throw the other ones out now what's important about this story is this is a typical methodology for the republicans tom corbett is the guy they want to experiment with they want to experiment in pennsylvania just like they did with scott walker on union issues and just like they did with rick scott on issues

having to do with voter purge they go to the dolt the dolt governor rick scott and they said how is this going to play out well it didn't play out well but what's happening with tom corbett is the same thing they're using pennsylvania to say if this thing gets laid we're going to do it all over the country so tom corbett pennsylvania that republican legislature is the first test case this is this is classic emote for the republicans and that's why it's so important to stay in front of this in front of this story because virtually if they do this correctly it would make it it would make it impossible for a democratic president to win in that state because they're simply going to go to the districts that are going to be favorable for the republican candidate and they're going to throw the other votes out so right now you only have seven republicans that have really cosigned on this on this bill because it is so outrageous but there's so shameless that they're not afraid to advance any idea in a test case like we're seeing in pennsylvania it's absolutely as if they can win

the vote fair and square the rig the election might happen tony thank you so much thank you joe. after the break the a.p.a. is supposed to be protecting americans from environmental hazards and dangerous practices so why did they let a drilling company contaminate drinking water wells in texas and then do nothing to stop it. the worst you could always think. about soup of a. radio guy minestrone click. on what. we're about to do because you've never seen anything like this on cold. let me let me i want to know wouldn't let me ask you a question from. here on this network is what we have in the bank we have our

knives out. to be ready for you this right what's the best thing ever to get here in a situation where b. and i don't agree to talk about the mail and we. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. another reason day is about much more than a brain cell thank you both a look at president obama's second term we're going to even move. even more

invasions of our privacy even and monday january twenty first and then and one plan for the president only. in screw news if you're afraid that fracking operations are going to contaminate the water you drink don't tell the e.p.a. because the agency does not have your back just as steve lipski a resident of fort worth texas two thousand and ten he told state officials and then the e.p.a. it is drinking water bubbles like champagne and that the water from his garden hose could be ignited after hearing about lipski and other areas homeowners the e.p.a. issued an endangerment order saying that at least two homeowners were in immediate

danger from a well saturated with flammable methane however according to documents obtained by the associated press the e.p.a. after being pressured by the drilling company because the contamination dropped its investigation into lipski case so how could the agency tasked with protecting our nation's vital natural resources buckle so easily under pressure from big oil joining me now is emily. we're director of the water program at food water watch emily welcome and thanks so much for having thanks for joining us what is range resources that this was the company associated with yes so they're a major oil and gas drilling and fracking company and they were responsible for drilling and fracking the wells about a mile from steve. investigation showed were responsible but it was probably responsible for contaminating drinking water supply and how did the is

there any evidence that they directly pressured the e.p.a. why did the e.p.a. back away from those so it was actually incredible that the e.p.a. had come in issued this executive administrative order it was actually a rare undertaking where they had heard about this contamination incident and felt that the local and state officials that are supposed to be regulating this were not adequately. addressing me endangerment to the health of the people in this area but what happened was the state agency intervened and said that they determined that range resources was not responsible for at the e.p.a. was trying was ordering range resources both to provide safe drinking water and begin to address the contamination that they had cause the state agency intervened and said they weren't responsible e.p.a. was actually going to take this to court they were pursuing a legal battle with range resources but at the same time they were they were preparing to talk to industry about a national drinking water study that they were pursuing to determine the potential

impacts of hydraulic fracturing i'm drinking water the e.p.a. decided that they needed range resources and other industry partners to agree to participate in the study range resources vote's the e.p.a. and said that they would not participate in their national drinking water study unless they dropped the case and texas which they called this baseless scientific investigation and texas so that's the way the e.p.a. they. peter article reports what happened there. it sounds like. well. there's a number of words that come to mind but it's it's really it's but it's. supposed to safeguard us and they didn't do that for steve lipski is this is this a unique stand alone example or has dropped the ball on a lot of those m fortunately the oil and gas industry has tremendous influence not only over our elected officials but also over these agencies like the e.p.a.

we've also seen another situation where the e.p.a. again prepared a study and looked into contamination and pavilion wyoming this again residents there were complaining that their water tasted and smelled like chemicals so after three years the e.p.a. finally did studies there issued a draft report that found in fact they believed that hydraulic fracturing had contaminated the water there were synthetic chemicals in the water there that are used in drilling that are not naturally occurring and we come to find out after that study was released again the a.p. did an investigative report and found that the state leaders the governor of wyoming had exchanged eleven thousand e-mails with the e.p.a. and had forced them to delay the release of their findings to give the state agency and the industry time to respond to what they were going to find in their report this led to. a problem you know very prolonged additional studies being done by the

e.p.a. there were hearings held in the house on on the method used by e.p.a. for the study there was this tremendous backlash by the industry and just this week the e.p.a. again extended the draft study for public comment until september of this year so this is just continually dragged out so this is not the only instance that we've seen where pressure from the oil and gas industry and those who benefit from drilling and fracking. influencing what should be a scientific process that's true even by the at this independent and t. protecting public health and sure my understanding is and correct me if i'm wrong that fracking was something that was basically developed by halliburton which is a company that was nearly bankrupt when dick cheney became vice president they got some huge contracts for the wars which brought them back in and in the cheney. helped ovoid from being regulated we have a little less than a minute can you guess so the fact that entertainment yeah the energy policy act

passed in two thousand and five contained what a lot of people refer to as the cheney loophole or the however a new poll exempted hydraulic fracturing from the safe drinking water act and parts of the clean air act and the clean water so does the e.p.a. have any authority well they do have they they don't have the authority they should have they have they have a few executive authority that they can use in certain situations where they think that drinking water is endangering house like they did in this situation but but you know this is largely exempt from our landmark environmental regulations at the federal level and we know the oil and gas industry influences the state regulators and have failed to protect public health and very quickly are there any members of congress who are trying to pull out the chain loophole. there is a bill called the frack act and this would overturn this loophole and i gather a number of members dianne and. bob casey others who who are advocating and trying

to push this through gerald called on people. should contact their members of congress yes because we not only thank you so much for some of this great having you think you really were. in the boat as the rest of the news it's almost do or die time for filibuster reform. in the senate the senate reconvenes next week and a vote on filibuster reform could come as early as next tuesday the overwhelming use of the filibuster in recent years on virtually exclusively by republicans as crippled the sun it according to a recent report from the brennan center the one hundred twelfth senate passed a record low two point eight percent of bills that are deuced a sixty six percent decrease from two thousand and five two thousand and six and a ninety percent decrease from five decades ago our ability to invest in america to

hold wall street accountable to strengthen the middle class to fight global warming and climate change all of that stuff hangs in the balance in this debate over filibuster reform so will filibuster reform pass the senate the next couple of weeks and even if it does will it be enough will do the job joining me now is diana kasten counsel for the burn centers democracy program diana welcome thank you one of the two reform packages in the senate floor right now to reform the filibuster. right now what we have which is the gold standard of the reform packages that are on the table it's called senate resolution number four it's being championed by senators merkley and you'd all and that really is the best prospect for really reforming the rules and a way that's going to end the type of dysfunction you just described having one of the least productive congress is ever in a senate that can't even really get its own bills out of its own house so that's a reform package that for starters would allow bills to proceed to debate without

ceasing a filibuster before they even reach the four floor really importantly it would require a talking filibuster so of so there's a minority of senators who want to object to the bill who want to debate its merits they need to stand up and talk about what their concerns are and why they're holding up the legislation mr goss has do a lot to. and there to also do a lot to streamline judicial nominations right we have a judicial emergency right now we have. more vacancies when then then when president obama took office he is not able to fill those positions because of filibusters of nominations and that's the most promising reform package on the table right now now there's also a far more watered down proposal by senators carl levin a democrat and john mccain and then i understand the majority leader reid is even talking about some sort of middle ground that he's going to pop up with do i have every that's right there was a bipartisan proposal it was produced by the levin mccain group of eight and it is

extremely watered down i'd say one of the biggest problems with it is it's completely an enforceable for most of the aspects it's basically another handshake deal asking the majority minority leader to agree that they're not going to allow the kind of obstruction we saw last congress the problem with that is we saw that same kind of handshake deal before the start of one hundred twelfth congress and as our report found not only didn't work i mean we saw more obstruction it's also got some provisions that are standing orders that would do a little to streamline filibusters on motions to proceed but they sunset at the end of the congress so we'd be back where we started with the next congress so that that's not an acceptable approach to reform and that's become part of the negotiations senator reid has been discussing other options he's going to be meeting with his caucus next week we are really hopeful that what we're going to see is something that is the merkley proposal or very close to it that has the talking filibuster and i have to say there is such public support for that there's

support in the senate itself among many veteran and new senators but today there were nearly a million signed petitions delivered to senators saying that americans want this kind of reform they want to know what's going on in congress and they want to see those details real reform not just something called filibuster reform absolutely and put his name on what do you think the chances are that and this is only going to take fifty one votes right. because this is this is voting on the rules that's right at the start of the new senate they can change the rules with the simple majority this is a precedence that's been used before to push reform so that can happen next week when they reconvene what will happen that's the big question i mean i am not there i can't predict exactly but we know we have the support for real change we know that senator reid can get those votes together if he goes in there and takes the leadership and that's what we hope to see you know has anybody polled to the democratic caucus is there i'm sure senator reid is yeah but i mean publicly so we

don't know right now other than the carl levin is is in bed with john mccain other than that we don't know for sure and he's going to i mean we we we are right on the line there so it's important to keep the pressure on we know we have fifty one votes for supporting filibuster reform i think the question is what it's going to look like i think we will see something right i sure hope you're right diana thank you so much for being with us thank you my pleasure. coming up the phone lines are now open for our your take my take a live segment so if you want the chance to ask me a question live on the big picture right here give us a call at two zero two nine zero four twenty one thirty four and you'll be talking with you right after the break.

but.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture . another reason day of the ball much more than a pretty well taking a closer look at president obama's second term even more than even more invasions of our.